The Training School Bulletin 1941-05: Vol 38 Iss 3

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THE
TRAINING SCHOOL BULLETIN

MAY, 1941

Alexander Johnson

Alexander Johnson, affectionately known to thousands of
friends as “Uncle Alec,” died recently at the home of his son
in Aurora, Illinois at the age of ninety-four. Wonderful years
were his and wherever his footsteps led there was helpfulness,
encouragement, good cheer and an uplifting of those who suf-
fered socially, mentally, and physically.

In the days of the great Ohio flood in Cincinnati in 1882
he gave up his business to become secretary of the Associated
Charities of Cincinnati. He went from there to Chicago as
secretary of the Charity Organization Society. He then became
secretary of the Indiana State Board of Charities and later su-
perintendent of the Indiana School for the Feeble-Minded, then
general secretary of the National Conference of Charities and
Corrections, and later field secretary of the National Committee
on Provision for the Feeble-Minded.

To all of these things he gave his utmost. His most out-
standing characteristic was, I think, his understanding and
appreciation of younger men and women. He had a gift for
teaching to such a degree that his students took great pride in
being able to say, “I studied under Alexander Johnson.”

He wrote a number of articles and books on social welfare
which have served as text books, such as “Forty Years in So-
cial Work,” “Guide to Studies of Charity and Correction” and
“The Alms House.”

During his many visits to The Training School he endeared
himself to all of the children and the members of the staff.

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We feel that our best tribute to his memory is his own
words in the dedication and parts of the prologue of his book
“Adventures in Social Welfare,” written in 1928. Editor

“To the Social Workers of America, my
companions and workfellows, whose courage,
cheerfulness, loyalty and warm, human
friendliness have made my life among them

a fortunate and happy one: I lovingly dedicate
this record of forty years’ adventuring.”

“When I contrast the full and interesting life I have had
during the past forty years with the dull, monotonous grind
which probably would have been mine had I early learned to
make money and become absorbed in that narrowing occupation,
I am devoutly grateful to the friends who persuaded me to a-
dopt the most facinating of professions. A man can have no
better fortune than that the labor by which he lives brings such
satisfaction that if he did not need to work for wages he would
gladly do it without. Such good fortune many a social worker
shares with real artists, devoted physicians, true preachers, a
few fine craftsmen, every great scientist and some other happy
folk.

“Not that social work knows no pain, anxiety, disappoint-
ment, failure, defeat. He would be indeed a fortunate adven-
turer for whom all winds were favorable, who never misread
his chart, whose ship cleared every rock and shoal. Social work,
as Cabot says, is one of the dangerous occupations and its mon-
ey rewards are small. But its real compensations are great;
at any rate one old worker thinks so, and indeed is so sure of
it that he wants to tell the fact to all who will read his true
story.

“The wise old Greek said, ‘Call no man happy till he is
dead.’ perhaps we may revise his wisdom a little and say ‘until
he had retired.’ When a man has given up active work, is six
years past the psalmist’s ill-considered limit of threescore and
ten, and is well content with his lot so far, he may reasonably
hope for immunity from serious unhappiness during the brief
span which will be his.

“One incident gave me my first knowledge, often reenforced
since, of how “charity” is hated and feared by the decent poor.

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The working people of Lancashire were the sturdiest, least sub-
servient, most democratic of English folk. Peter Benson, an
old weaver, was a deacon of the little Baptist chapel of which
my father was a pillar (father always went where he thought
he was needed instead of to a church wherein he might have
found customers for his tailor shop). We were sure the Ben-
son family must be near the breaking point and, knowing they
would starve rather than apply to the relief fund, father took
me with him when we went with the offer of a few shillings
of my uncle’s money; he had little enough of his own by this
time, for business was at a standstill in the cotton district. The
sturdy old man refused the bitter bread of charity, declared
they were all right, they had no need. All father’s eloquence
seemed in vain until he said ‘Well, Peter, let’s tell the Lord
about it.’ Whereupon we all went down on our knees and in
a few moments the whole household was in tears. Father pray-
ed that we might be delivered from wicked pride, hardness of
heart and stiffness of neck, be humble-minded and willing both
to give and receive the tokens of love from each other as well
as from God. When ‘Amen’ sounded, Peter, who was weeping
like the rest, said, ‘John Johnson, thou are right, I am a proud
and wicked man, I have lied to thee. We took our last penny
from the savings bank five days agone and there’s not a crust |
in the house.’

“Think what it meant to be a beginner in social work with-
out all that the Schools for Social Workers now teach; all that
Warner, Devine, Gillin, Mary Richmond and so many others have
written for us. Perhaps I as one of the untrained beginners
may contribute a few suggestions about the early years of or-
ganized charity which may be of use when some great philos-
opher shall write ‘The History of Social Endeavor.’ If as a
philosopher should be, he is also a poet he may find or invent
the wished for word for our profession to replace that present
name, which many people find unsatisfactory.

“One of the charms of the profession of social work is its
versatility. No matter where you begin if you begin aright the
whole field is open. As with Napoleon’s conscripts the marshal’s
baton is in every knapsack. President Eliot says the educated
man is one who knows everything about something and some-
thing about everything. So with the social worker; he must
know his own job thoroughly and have a general idea of all the
rest.

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“The Art of social work began before the dawn of history.
It was well developed before the Pentateuch was written. The
agent of a League for Social Welfare or the director of a Legal
Aid Society, may be well content if he can honestly rank him.
self with the patriarch Job.

“But the Science of social work without which it can hard-
ly be counted a profession is recent. The first hint that we had
at the National Conference of Charities and Correction that such
a science could be recognized by a University, was in 1893,
Warner’s first edition of ‘American Charities,’ among the earl-
iest books to treat the subject scientifically, was new then. Hen-
derson was led into applied sociology and to writing ‘Depen-
dents, Defectives, and Delinquents’ and his other books; thru
his experiences in organizing Associated Charities in Terre
Haute and Detroit.

“The term ‘social worker’ was chiefly used at first to mean
an agent of the organized charities; but the term soon took on
a wider meaning. I felt myself just as much a social worker
when I was inspecting prisons, hospitals, jails and poorhouses
for a Board of State Charities, or conducting a school for feeble-
minded; as when I was secretary of an Associated Charities or
of the National Conference of Charities and Correction.

“Because I want my experiences to be really of value to
those for whom I write—to whom my book is dedicated—I shall
tell them frankly of much gratifying success; making friends
for myself and my work; doing things and getting things done.
But I shall tell them also as frankly (or almost as frankly) of
disappointing failures; some caused by error about facts or of
opinion; some by other people’s derelictions; some by over-am-
bition or undue haste or by circumstances quite beyond my con-
trol and which could not have been foreseen; and some because
I let temptation, bad advice, seeming expediency, even coward-
ice, warp my judgment about what was best and worst.

“I write out of long and sometimes painful experience when
I counsel social workers to obey Emerson, and ‘always do what
you are afraid to do.’ I have always been glad when I have
faced ‘life’s ragged and dangerous front’ and done the evidently
right thing although disaster threatened; I have never ‘taken
counsel with my fears’ without regret following fast.”

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State Program for the Care of the
Mentally Deficient

By WILLIAM J. ELLIs, LL.D., Commissioner
Department of Institutions and Agencies, Trenton, New Jersey

CHANGES IN CONCEPTION OF CARE

Programs developed for the care of the mentally deficient
in the United States reflect the special conditions and back-
grounds of the different states, their social and economic re-
sources and their attitude toward the importance and urgency
of the problem. Practically all states have gone through some-
what similar steps in developing programs which follow cur-
rent thought and the results of research studies. Certain states
have been pioneers in the development of specialized types of
care due largely to the work of individual administrators, edu-
cators, psychologists and medical specialists who have led the
way.

Certain general principles in existing state programs are .
discernible. These may be summarized as follows:

1. Identification and registration of the mentally deficient.

2. Institutional care with training programs to meet indi-
vidual needs.

3. Community care for persons not needing institutional
training and for those who have been released from in-
stitutions.

4. Special classes in public schools for those not requiring
institutional care.

5. Research along medical, psychological, eugenic, educa-
tional and social lines.

The understanding of the needs of the mentally deficient
has changed materially in recent years. Not long ago many
persons believed that all feeblemindedness was hereditary in
origin, that the mentally deficient were a threat to civilization
and a menace to the community, that the reproduction rate

* Reprinted from the American Journal of Mental Deficiency, Vol. XLV, No. 3, Jan., 1941.

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was enormous, that most feebleminded were delinquents ang
most delinquents were feebleminded. The policy most generally
advocated was for more and more institutions to be set up for
permanent custodial care. But time has changed our view-
point, and more study and understanding have brought a dif-
ferent emphasis to the fore.

The problem of mental deficiency is today looked upon ag
essentially a problem of child development to be tackled as early
as possible by the community in which the child lives. As a
result, progressive child care methods are being brought into
play. Moreover, the keynote of modern care is integration of
all types of service, community and institutional, for all grades
of the subnormal from idiots to those of borderline intelligence.
And with better clinical methods and more understanding has
come a clearer comprehension of the facts in relation to diag-
nosis, treatment and training, and community adjustment.

EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM

The 1930 White House Conference on Child Health and
Protection suggested that fully 15 per cent of the total popula-
tion falls within the range of low intelligence. Best estimates
place the number of feebleminded in the general population as
one per cent with probably two per cent of the juveniles so clas-
sified. These estimates would indicate that persons whose in-
telligence is below the average group total nineteen million, of
whom 1,300,000 would be classed as definitely feebleminded.

The feebleminded now institutionalized in the United States
number about 100,000 or 8 per cent of the estimated feeble-
minded population, while the number of retarded children in
special classes in this country is estimated at only slightly more
than 100,000. These figures indicate not merely the need for
institutions with progressive educational programs but the ur-
gent problem which faces the community in developing adequate
means of dealing with those who do not require institutional
care.

THE PLACE OF THE INSTITUTION IN THE PROGRAM

Institutional care is without question still necessary for
certain groups of the mentally deficient, but if institutions are
to achieve their most useful purpose, we must press constantly
for the modification of mere custodial care to the development
of effective training plans directed toward socialization of the

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feebleminded, with community return as the goal for a large
proportion.

Today institutional care is considered advisable for those
who can profit by a program of vocational and social training
which will prepare them for return to community life. It is
also necessary to use the institution for those whose develop-
ment is so arrested that they are a serious burden to the family
and community or a danger to themselves and to society. In-
stitutional care is also required for that group whose develop-
ment is so retarded that the outlook is for prolonged or per-
manent care in an environment where they can function to the
maximum of their individual abilities.

THE NEW JERSEY INSTITUTIONS

In developing the institutional program for the mentally
deficient in New Jersey it has been recognized from the outset
that the different mental levels and classifications of individuals
must first be considered and that other factors such as help-
lessness, crippling and misconduct must also be taken into ac-
count.

The first institution for the mentally deficient in New
Jersey was a private enterprise, The Training School at Vine-
land, established in 1888. This school has been throughout the
years a pioneer in the development of training programs and
research into causative and remedial factors. Other institu-
tions have been developed as the need arose and each has been
assigned a definite function in the total program.

The State Colony at Woodbine receives male idiots and low
grade imbeciles above five years of age as well as imbeciles and
morons below 8 years of age for habit training. The New Lis-
bon Colony receives feebleminded boys 8 years of age and over,
higher than the low grade imbecile level. The Vineland State
School receives feebleminded females over 5 years of age of
all mental levels while the North Jersey Training School re-
ceives girls between 8 and 21 who are mentally retarded but
who are trainable, and for whom the outlook is for community
rather than continued institutional care.

Training has been emphasized throughout in social and in-
dustrial fields for community release in a controlled or semi-
controlled environment. Others, for whom community place-
ment is not feasible, are trained for better institutional adjust-

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ment and for the performance of maintenance and other jobs
in the institutions.

Even the idiot group, which was formerly considered ip.
capable of any real adjustment, has been organized in pro-
gressive classes for the development and coordination of motor
and physiological functions, for instruction in diversional and
recreational activities and for the development of handwork
projects with the result that random behavior has been re-
directed toward the acquisition of socially desirable habits—
all contributing to better adjustment.

COLONY CARE

Colony care has been regarded as an essential part of an
adequate state program. The original idea and the one that
perhaps is followed most extensively is that of setting up simple
housing facilities on land that can be developed and worked as
a farming project. This provides useful employment, permits
patients to contribute to their own support, is an outlet for
energies, and, because of lessened routine and supervision, pro-
motes a sense of freedom closely akin to that of a home in the
community.

These colonies utilize the physical energy of the boys, de-
velop their abilities, reduce their limitations and stimulate in-
terests. Such colonies are practical and humanitarian, a pro-
tection to the individual and to society and an asset to the tax-
payer.

In New Jersey the New Lisbon Colony for Feebleminded
Males was operated originally as a colony for The Training
School at Vineland with these ideas in mind. Although it has
become a major state institution, it has retained many colony
features. The Training School in 1913 established the Men-
antico Colony for Boys, which has been operated successfully
ever since.

Another development of colony life is represented by the
small industrial and domestic units established in communities
in a number of states to bridge the gap between institutional
and community life. These provide opportunity for the men-
tally handicapped to adjust economically and socially. The
number and size of the colonies is dependent upon the opportun-
ities for community employment. Such a program provides a
continuation in industrial and vocational training as well as

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in social and economic efficiency which frequently makes pos-
sible the successful development of stable cases to a self-support-
ing status.

New Jersey has provided this type of care in the Red Bank
Service Center which is conducted by the Vineland State School
as a training home. The Center is also used to provide “vaca-
tion” periods from the main institution for selected girls. Girls
are employed at domestic service in the community but live to-
gether at the Center, contributing from their earnings toward
their support. They may eventually be placed under supervi-
sion in the community if they are sufficiently stable to merit
a trial.

The North Jersey Training School also has a program of
intermediate training under which selected girls live at the in-
stitution and go out each day to work in private homes in the
vicinity. A summer camp away from the institution makes
possible a recreational program and provides an intermediate
type of supervision.

From INSTITUTION TO COMMUNITY

The training program of the institutions in New Jersey
aims at early release of those individuals for whom such a goal .
is possible. When a boy or girl in a New Jersey institution
has shown definite signs of social acceptability, when he has
been successful at institutional and training tasks to which he
has been assigned, the possibility of his release on trial in the
community is considered by the institution’s classification com-
mittee. The superintendent, the educational director, the psy-
chologist, the physician, the social worker and other specialists
serve aS members of the group.

If home conditions are acceptable, he may be returned to
his home with the supervising officer assisting the family in his
adjustment and possibly obtaining employment for him outside
the home. Domestic service is a desirable type of placement
for girls since they have 24 hour supervision by the employer.
Factory work, beauty parlor and laundry work are favorable if
home conditions make possible the supervision of leisure time
activities. For boys, farm placements, work with members of
the family, laboring work, factory work, and clerking in stores
have provided successful employment opportunities.

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It has been the policy to “discharge” the patients if gey-
eral years in the community have shown satisfactory adjust-
ment and if there is no apparent need for further supervision,
There is question whether this should be done unless sufficient
supervision is to continue through some other community pro-
gram. The White House Conference suggests: “Patients, even
those succeeding, should not be discharged, if discharge means
lapse of supervision. The handicap of feeblemindedness can
never be completely overcome, and adverse environmental influ-
ences may at any time make recommitment necessary.”

It is generally recognized that institutional training can be
made effective only by guiding and directing the feebleminded
for a long period and perhaps throughout his entire life. It is
important therefore, that patients and their parents receive ex-
pert advice on behavior, employment, choice of companions,
marriage, and other personal problems. This phase of the pro-
gram requires serious consideration and development.

THE MENTALLY DEFICIENT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Only a small percentage of the mentally deficient actually
enter institutions. As a result, the state must look to the
public school system for the training of that large number who
do not actually require institutional care. The public schools
must assume responsibility for the well-adjusted higher-grade
mentally deficient of school age who are not seriously handi-
capped physically, who come from reasonably good homes, and
whose presence in the public school is not seriously detrimental
to the best interests of normal children.

For such mentally retarded children the school should pro-
vide proper pre-vocational, habit and social training and oc-
cupational programs together with such academic work as they
can profitably undertake. There is need for the preparation of
such pupils for useful and productive work in semi-skilled and
unskilled occupations. Training in socially acceptable habits
is of course a major objective. The special class movement
which must recognize these needs, should be largely extended.

In New Jersey the school laws prescribe that “in each
school district in which there are ten or more children three
years or more below normal, the board of education shall es-
tablish a special class—no class, however, to contain more than
fifteen children.”

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However, it is true in some states that schools exclude men-
ally subnormal children or fail to compel their attendance while
others do not provide suitable instruction and facilities.

THE MENTALLY DEFICIENT AND THE DELINQUENT

The prevention of delinquency among the mentally deficient
and the treatment of the defective delinquent merit serious con-
sideration. Many children with minor behavior problems be-
come adjusted when their mental deficiency is recognized, and
proper school and home relationships established. Other chil-
dren present complicating problems that cannot be met by their
home communities, by schools or by their families.

If they run the danger of becoming delinquent they must
be trained to the limit of their capacities in the hope of making
them socially acceptable. The ability of some of these delin-
quent children is sometimes too high for intensive, intimate
association with docile retarded children—and yet not high
enough to be disregarded and commitment made to a correction-
al institution.

A separate unit is needed for children who are both men-
tally deficient and have behavior, neurotic, or emotional distur-
bances. At the Vineland State School a separate building is
devoted to unstable cases. Patients from all institutions with
more serious “commitable” psychopathic disturbances are trans-
ferred to one of the State Hospitals for specific treatment.

In New Jersey, transfer to institutions for the mentally
deficient are made from homes for juvenile delinquents and in-
stitutions for adult offenders on the recommendation of the in-
stitutional classification committee and the Division of Classi-
fication of the Department of Institutions and Agencies.

There is general agreement that the defective delinquent
who has a long criminal record should be institutionalized over
a prolonged period, preferably in a colony type institution where
he will have complete segregation, inexpensive housing, and
productive and useful work.

MAINTENANCE OF THE MENTALLY DEFICIENT IN THE COMMUNITY

Since it is evident that the majority of the mentally defi-
cient are not in need of institutional care, public responsibility
extends to adequate educational and social service supervision

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for those remaining in the community. These may include:
1. The pre-school child, too young for institutional care.
2. The school child.
3. Graduates of special classes.
4. Persons above school age.

The United States Children’s Bureau recommends that
“sound community planning would provide for every retarded
child a careful study of his mental abilities and educational op-
portunities adapted to his requirements within the public-school
system. It would provide also a program of social services to
help parents to understand their children’s limitations and ca-
pacities and to plan for and guide the mentally handicapped
children remaining in their own homes or returned to their
homes after a period of training in an institution.”

Special classes in the schools provide academic and pre-
vocational training but seldom extend their work to community
supervision either during the school years or the years that fol-

_low. This field is one which might well be expanded, for many
persons may be kept permanently out of institutions or out of
trouble by assistance in planning work, recreation, and social
contacts. It is essential, too, that graduates of public school
special classes have the benefit of occupational placement and
follow-up.

Employment service should be a part of the integrated
state program for the non-institutional group as well as those
who have left institutions. State employment agencies might
catalog occupations suitable for retarded persons and maintain
an employment list for them in the semi-skilled and unskilled
occupations (with the repetitious features that do not displease
the mentally deficient but may bore the more normal worker).

Home training programs have been developed in some states
to help the mentally deficient child make better adjustment in
his family circle and to help the family understand the child’s
possibilities and needs. Children too young for institutions or
awaiting placement in them, and others whose parents wish to
keep them at home, are eligible. After a psychological examin-
ation to determine the mental age, the social worker brings a
lesson to the child’s home, instructs the family how to use this
material, and returns at periodic intervals to check progress
and to leave new lessons.

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Community supervision may also be extended to:

1, Cases committed by the courts who can be self-support-
ing (mostly in boarding and wage homes with frequent
contact of the social worker with the employer and the
person supervised).

2. Cases not needing or deserving commitment through the
courts but receiving the same intensive service in self-
direction, self-maintenance, and social usefulness.

Family care in foster homes is likewise being used experi-
mentally for the feebleminded instead of institutional commit-
ment in a few states, following in some measure the systems
used for both the mentally ill and the mentally deficient in
Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland and Scotland.

Two of the leaders of this Association, Dr. Edgar A. Doll
of the Vineland Training School and Dr. Horatio M. Pollock of
Albany, have given impetus to a better understanding of the
possibilities of family care through their recent publications.

Family care for the mentally deficient has proved practical
when patients are properly selected, when suitable families can
be found, and, most important of all, where there is adequate
supervision. The tranquillity of a good foster home may supply
the proper emotional background for a mentally deficient child
who is a behavior problem because of home conditions or be-
cause of having to compete with normal children in the home.
Among the older groups, family care is effective for those whose
social competence is superior to their mental competence and
who can readily adjust in a home environment.

It is highly desirable that the results of the various ex-
periments in family care in the United States be carefully re-
corded and studied, for family care may prove an effective
means of maintaining in the community a considerable number
of the mentally deficient who otherwise might seem to require
commitment to an institution.

DIAGNOSIS AND REGISTRATION

In order to plan a program for the mentally deficient, it
is necessary to locate and diagnose them. Formerly only the
low grade feebleminded were recognized early by their families
and others in the neighborhood. The higher grade of the men-
tally deficient generally escaped attention and so did not benefit

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by special training unless physical handicaps or delinquent ten.
dencies existed.

Over the years the means of diagnosis have been greatly
augmented in scope and improved in precision. The community
mental hygiene clinics, now developed in considerable numbers,
are able to give complete diagnostic service and with the aid
of their psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers to an-
alze the individual’s mental assets and liabilities, and to determ-
ine the type of care—home, school or institutional—best suited.
Such clinic services are available in a number of states through
travelling clinics of state welfare or mental hygiene depart-
ments. Larger municipalities have their own clinics under
school, court, hospital, or welfare auspices.

In view of the responsibility which the state has in pro-
tecting and controlling certain types of mentally deficient it
becomes desirable that a central state registry be maintained,
to which information would be brought from all agencies and
individuals dealing with the mentally deficient. Such a central
registry offers an effective means of coordinating activities in
behalf of the mentally deficient and the information gathered
is extremely useful for research purposes.

STATE COORDINATION AND SUPERVISION

Recent years have witnessed an increasing tendency for
state and local agencies to cooperate in dealing with the men-
tally deficient. Nevertheless there are still gaps in the program.
Many communities in many states fail to recognize and help pre-
school children who are mentally deficient and too young for
institutions, and those in schools. Vocational and manual train-
ing is a need of many children while vocational placement and
supervision of those leaving special classes would assist greatly
in their community adjustment.

The real job ahead is to tie together in a coordinated pro-
gram the work done by public agencies including departments
of welfare, institutions and agencies, education and labor, and
by health, family and child welfare agencies.

CONCLUSIONS

The direction in which we should be moving to meet the
problem of the mentally deficient may be indicated somewhat as
follows:

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Increase and improve facilities to discover the mentally de-
ficient in their earliest years.

Make the public school system aware of the special needs
of mentally deficient children of school age and integrate their
program with that of normal pupils.

Provide community care and supervision for those who
have received public school training or have returned from in-
titutions. Emphasize in institutional programs socialization of
the most hopeful and early return to the community.

Provide adequate care in special institutions for those
showing definite and persistent anti-social tendencies.

Register with a central state agency all mentally deficient
who present problems inimicable to society and for whom special
provision should be made.

Conduct research to evaluate the effects of current pro-
grams and to render possible clues as to methods by which the
consequences of mental deficiency may be prevented.

The Fifty-third Annual Meeting
of the
Training School Association and their Friends
Will Be Held on
Wednesday, June ll, 1941

The Training School Bulletin

Who is My Neighbor?

There are few people who lived in a country neighborhood
over a quarter of a century ago, and went to the little roadside
school, who cannot call up characters that they knew and play-
ed with, and who in some cases are remembered now as pathetic
individuals, because they were teased and bullied by the boys
or snubbed by the girls in the group. But more often they are
remembered as the outstanding characters in the neighborhood
because they were older and yet always ready to play games,
to skate or coast or go fishing. They had plenty of time to
mend a doll or pick berries or climb to the top of the tallest
tree to get ripe cherries or shake down chestnuts.

‘Such friends were George and Lewis, who though grown
to years of manhood still marched off to district school every
winter to read in the second reader and to say over and over
their “two times two” which they had learned by heart, but
without the slightest comprehension, a dozen years before. Such
was the situation in the girlhood days of my mother, but when
her children became a part of the community, George and Lewis
were still there and stand out as two of the most loyal and de-
voted friends they ever had.

Their father, True, was a simple-minded man of great phys-
ical strength who earned his living mostly in the north woods
because there he had the supervision and direction of the other
lumbermen. But one day poor True did not “happen to see”
a great tree that was being felled by another chopper and after
that True’s family, his wife, Hannah a poor simple-minded
woman, and George and Lewis were left without the strong
arms and back of him, who had been, head of the household.

However, Josiah, a very shrewd, eccentric, little old man
was their uncle who lived just across the way. He kept an eye
on the “boys” and saw to it that their little farm produced
most of the essentials of their living. The “boys” did odd jobs
on the neighboring farms, to buy their clothes. However, their

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simple tasks gave them plenty of leisure which was always
taken advantage of by the children of the neighborhood. I can
see them now treking down over the hill early in the morning,
always in single file with “old Tigus” at their heels. We were
always ready to greet them for it was seldom that from some
pocket there did not appear a handful of chestnuts, a shiny
apple or perhaps a grotesque object whittled by the cunning
knife of Lewis. From his hand came the best willow whistles
and even a wooden doll was not unknown to appear.

The neighbors understood them well, even though they did
not speak of them in terms of I. Q’s. or of their mental ages
which were probably about six or seven. But when sickness
or trouble came to the little old house under the hill my mother
would gather together her emergency basket and hurry away
to watch over and care for them until they were better. The
men in the families would create jobs for the “boys” and had
great patience with their lazy, stupid habits. I remember well
that George could never be taught to pick potatoes in the field
except by picking them up very carefully one at a time in his
right hand and then with equal care put it in his left hand and
then into the basket.

My brother and I once told Lewis we would do something
wonderful for him if he would jump over the pump, never dream-
ing there might be a limit to the athletic achievements of his
long legs. He made a herculean effort but only succeeded in
smashing his face and breaking a tooth. My grandmother
scurried to the scene and Lewis was repaired, given sympathy
and a treat, and sent home while the two guilty children were
banished to solitude for the rest of the day.

It was true that the “boys” had to be watched and that
they frequently got into mischief but their simple life and en-
vironment gave them a good deal of protection, and their pranks
were not serious.

At last poor old Hannah grew weaker and more senile and
couldn’t “tell the boys what to do.” Gradually they became
confused and frustrated and could not find the way by them-
selves. They were no longer happy and carefree but were in-
clinded to be melancholy, and wander aimlessly. Finally,
when Hannah had gone they were taken to the County Alms-
house where they lived only a few years.

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The Training School Bulletin

Last summer I pushed my way through the tangled under.
brush of the little graveyard on the hilltop, where side by side
the whole family lies. So far as I know not a relative remains,
I realized that in each case my family and the other neighbors
had helped, protected, guided and finally followed each one to
his grave in this secluded spot. They had lived out their simple,
harmless lives and generation because of the Community Care
that they had gratuitously received, and not one of their ben-
efactors realized that they were controlling a difficult social
problem.

HELEN HILL

Announcements

Harvard Summer School is offering from July 7 to August 16 an
opportunity for study in Remedial Reading, Statistical Methods, Edu-
cational Psychology, Educational Measurement, Problems of Growth and
Behavior of Children.

Dr. Walter F. Dearborn is giving the course on the Behavior Prob-
lems of Children. Associated with him in giving this course are: Dr.
Douglas A. Thom, Dr. William Healy and Mr. Cheney C. Jones. The course
in Abnormal and Dynamic Psychology will be given by Associate Professor
Donald W. MacKinnon of Bryn Mawr College.

The University of Alabama in their courses in psychology will give
special attention to mental hygiene, child psychology, teaching, remedial
reading, and mental testing of exceptional children. These courses begin
on June 9 and July 19.

There will be a double period course on “Problems of Mentally and
Educationally Retarded Children,” carrying three credits, at Duke Uni-
versity beginning July 1, and continuing for three weeks. This course will
be repeated for a second three weeks, continuing to August 12. The course
will be under the direction of Dr. J. E. W. Wallin, Division of Special Edu-
cation and Mental Hygiene of Delaware. Those wishing to register must
apply at once.

The Training School Bulletin

American Association on
Mental Deficiency |

Salt Lake City, Utah, June 20 - 24, 1941

Since 1876 this Association has held an Annual meet-
ing, the purpose being to study and investigate all subjects
pertaining to the cause, prevention, instruction, care and
general welfare of the mentally deficient.

SOME OBJECTIVES:

The construction of institutions for the feebleminded.

Clinical and pathological investigation to determine
more exactly the causes of mental deficiency.

A complete census and registration of all mentally de-
ficient children of school age.

The establishment of special classes for feebleminded
children in large towns and cities. Proper after-care of
special class pupils.

Extra-institutional supervision of all defectives in the
community.

The segregation of mentally deficient persons in insti- —
tutional care and training, with a permanent segregation
of those who cannot make satisfactory social adjustments
in the community.

Parole for all suitable institutionally trained mentally
defective persons.

These objectives require cooperation on the part of psy-
chologists, psychiatrists, teachers, social workers, parole
officers, court officers, prison officers, physicians and all in-
telligent citizens.

One of the most important functions of the Association
has been its endeavor to present the work done by the Asso-
ciation through the Annual publication of the Proceedings. In
1940 it undertook to meet the demand for a quarterly Journal.
The first issue of the American Journal of Mental Deficiency
appeared in July.

The Association membership fee of $4.00 includes a subscrip-
tion to the Journal.
Dr. E. A. WHITNEY, Elwyn, Pa., Sec’y.

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The Training School Bulletin

Notes From The News Sheet

We have had an interesting time watching a robin build her nest
in a tree by the porch at Carol Cottage. First we found five blue eggs in
her nest and just two days ago we found three babies and still two
and one day later there were four babies and now there are five baby birds,
We are hoping they will grow to be very pretty robins.

Mr. Horton has dug up our flower bed for us and we have planted
our seeds and are sure we will soon have some pretty flowers. We are go
glad for this nice weather. We stay in the grove most all day playing
ball and other games and enjoying the new sand box and swings.

On Sunday, May 18th I had a very lovely day. Roger, one of my
best friends had a visit from his mother. She took him out over Saturday
night. On Sunday morning she came back to pick me up. We went for a
ride down to Atlantic City. We walked on the Boardwalk for awhile. Then
we had a very nice lunch. We walked on the Boardwalk a little after
lunch and then we saw a fine movie. It was called “Meet John Doe.” After
the movie we drove back to Vineland. Then we had our supper down town
in Vineland. I certainly had a very enjoyable day.

The boys in Branson cottage have been playing a few baseball games
with the members of the Red, White and Blue Club.

Mr. Horton and his father decorated the stage at Garrison Hall very
beautifully for Easter. They took plants and formed a very lovely cross.
Colorful spring flowers were placed in vases around the stage. I think it
was one of the nicest and prettiest stages we have had for some time. Near
the stage were some pets. The animals that are always associated with
Easter: rabbits. The boys and girls gave some recitations and Mrs. Aker
had the choir sing and that added a lot to the assembly. All of us hada
wonderful Easter.

The Hutchinson children had a May Day party out on the lawn.
Each one of the little boys wore a fancy hat to match the streamers on
the May Pole. Guests from a number of cottages were invited and the
children entertained with short recitations of nursery rhymes, songs, games
and dances. Every one had punch and cookies before they left.

Several of the Babbitt boys celebrated birthdays recently. Bobby,
George, Henry and Ned all celebrated with big cakes and ice cream. All
of the boys helped Gordon celebrate his birthday last week.

We hear that Jimmy is going to take part in the Annual Day en-
tertainment. Jimmy is one of our best performers so the report may be
true but I suppose we will all have to go to see the entertainment to be
positive that he is in it. While we are writing about Jimmy we had better
tell you that he wrote a play “The Green Hornet.” He and the other mem-
bers of the Junior Boys Club enacted it for the Babbitt Staff. In fact these
boys put on a house entertainment. In addition to the play there were
recitations, singing and dancing. There was also some community singing
before the play and Freddie’s newly developed bass voice could be heard
booming through all the others.

* These are copies of the notes as gathered by the children for their monthly News
Sheet—Editor.

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